feb 22

Thanks very much to my son,Richard, for scanning and posting my photos and notes. I knoz he's been really busy with midterms, essays; and work. We seem to be more or less back to our warm sunny weather. We headed off to the interior yesterday and visited Draguignan, Fayence (surprised there is not pottery or cera,ics there) and Callian (where Anthony Burgess lived for a number of years. We also got to Grasse but didn't stay long as we had enough of difficult driving situations. Fayence and Callian are charming old villages high in the mountains so lots of narrow winding roads. They on the road that came at us a little earlier in the day. Since there are lots of them and you know they are stupid, you stop. A few tried to make their getaway but soon were picked up by the three dogs. Actually, the driving was very parallel. A pack of cars accosted us and I guess we didn't pull over quite far enough. However they all passed at great speed except for the last one whose driver stopped, threw up her hands in despair, rolled down her window and insulted us by saying " 93 - that doesn't surprise me" referring to the department on our licence plate. She reminded me of the snapping dogs at the errant sheep....

Lots of drivers in bad moods - not surprising given the difficult driving situations. I much prefer the coast but the mopuntains with their pines and vistas have a special quality too. Not quite as beautiful as Tuscany. I think because it't much drier in this area. The greenness and the disposition of the cypresses makes Tuscany very special for beauty. We' ve had enough of that type of driving for a while. It's great to know there are so many places to go to between Nice and Marseilles on the coast and we can hop the autoroute ay an-y point if the driving gets to be a pain.